


Feast Upon the Light

by UglyJackal



Series: Final Fantasy Shenanigans [12]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Cutscene Rewriting, M/M, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Takes Place After Innocence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 18:34:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20363158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/UglyJackal
Summary: And then the dripping wound was gouged open by the antler of impatience. And the blood came pouring out.





	Feast Upon the Light

He was in his inn room. The cold brown ceiling told him as much. After everything that had happened, that  _ he _ had done, he was able to lay on a soft bed in comfort? People were rather more forgiving than he gave them credit for, it seemed.

He heard a noise beside him - a sharp intake of breath, one that had not expected to see his open eyes - and Jack turned his head to see his beloved Urianger sitting vigil at his bedside.

_ His beloved… _ Was that quite right?

All the lies and the half-truths, the deception and the carefully concealed concepts…

‘Jack… you’re awaketh…’ Urianger’s deep, rolling timbre was a welcome one, though with its own rhythm, it brought so many more questions and doubts and worries with it. Perhaps it was not as welcome as Jack had thought.

‘Yeah… looks that way…’

‘Ladybird, I-’

‘ _ Don’t. _ ’

The elezen flinched as the hrothgar’s voice prowled over him. A jaguar in hunt, Jack’s voice was angry and abrupt, a bloody pool of aching sadness dripped from the wound of betrayal and hurt, staining the spotted pelt of the angry predator.

‘After what you’ve done, do you truly think that you hold the right to call me by a  _ pet name _ ?’ 

‘I bethought it might… ease the tension somewhat.’

Jack scoffed. ‘This is not mere  _ tension _ ,’ he said, ‘this is not some lover’s tiff.’

The elezen nodded, his mouth stayed shut, and his eyes stayed away.

And then the dripping wound was gouged open by the antler of impatience. And the blood came pouring out. ‘You had me think that by doing all of  _ this _ , killing these Light Wardens again and again, taking their Light  _ again and again _ , destroying my body  _ bit by bit _ , that I might have preserved my life! And not only my own life but the lives of all those back on the Source, friends, family, strangers,  _ lovers _ !’ Jack snarled, teeth glistening from the blinding light of the Lakeland sky that could be seen out of the open window. The light that was not meant to be; the light that they had fixed, had vanquished, had banished in favour of the sunless sea. ‘But instead… you would have had me become a damned  _ sin eater _ !’

Urianger said nothing. He only looked anywhere but his bristling boyfriend, a deep sadness swimming in his sunlit eyes.

‘And to think… I truly missed thee-’ the elezen’s eyes snapped up to look at Jack, drinking in his furious expression, the fury that was born from a deep ache of melancholy in his very soul - ‘... did you miss me, my love?’

‘Of course I-’

‘ _ Then why couldn’t you show it _ ?’ Jack hissed, his uncovered eye a glittering forest, where the trees rustled with the smoke of a fire and the bushes were held together by sheer unadulterated anger. ‘Did you even…  _ care _ that I, without Ryne’s intervention, would have become a  _ monster _ ? Did you even take a second thought about sacrificing me?’

‘T’was not liketh that, and don’t thee dareth imply that it was!’ And now it was Urianger’s turn to shout, his turn to bleed, to suffer at the claws of a ferocious hunter. ‘I hath tried so hard -  _ so hard _ \- to findeth any other way to fixeth this damned mess without harming thee. I did pour over text upon text to findeth any way at all to saveth thee, because dammit, I can’t… I can't liveth without thee, Jack… and the fact that thee wouldst think that I wouldst alloweth thee to die hurts more than I can sayeth.’

There was a moment where the wind blew heavy, where the water lapped against the shore with waves wrought with tense froth, where the grass shivered and the leaves whispered.  _ Everything _ was waiting for Jack’s next words.  _ Everything  _ was waiting for the emotions to rattle in the whirlpool in the room.  _ Everything  _ watched the two men.

‘You really can talk your way out of anything, can’t you?’

There was a harsh poison ladled over Jack’s words. A poison that spat and burned. A poison that wore away at Urianger, took his skin and tore at its very sinews, breaking it down until his very soul had been touched. And the ugly poison filled up the sun and threatened to spill onto a sandy beach, to fall from a bearded jaw, and only the elezen’s steely resolve held it back.

He stood from his chair, teeth clenched, eyes averted. ‘I can seeth that it wouldst be easier if I wast not with thee at the moment, so I shalt leaveth thee for a while… until we art ready to converse again.’

And without another word, he left the room.

Jack looked down at his lap, fur bristling, ears twitching as the door slammed shut. The sound echoed through the room as everything came crashing down upon him, everything sank in, piercing his skin as it dove down into his bloodstream. By the Twelve, what a mess. Not only was the  _ world _ in jeopardy, but so too was his relationship with Urianger. After everything they had been through, would this truly break them? Broken truths had a habit of breaking hearts.

He found himself wandering over to the window, through which he could see the Light. He didn’t want to see the Light. All this time, he had been working so hard to bring Light back to the Source and now…? He would have given anything to have shut it out permanently. He would have given anything to have been blind in both eyes instead of one. The Warrior of Light just couldn’t seem to help himself.

‘Hey, bucko, how ya holdin’ up?’ the ghostly chime of Ardbert’s voice brought Jack out of his storming thoughts. He looked up, a thousand feelings etched into the lines of his face. ‘Yeah, I didn’t think it would have been a good idea to interrupt your little domestic there.’

The hrothgar snorted and his fur bristled as a rough breeze ran through it, a breeze that held the tsunami of his temper and the lightning of his patience.

‘Not in a talking mood, huh?’

‘Not really.’

‘Ah… maybe I should leave my lecture for later.’

‘No, go ahead, I usually stay quiet anyway.’

And so Ardbert spoke. He spoke and Jack listened. Just like most exchanges that Jack had. Until Urianger. Despite his bizarre speaking patterns and his tendency to talk for far too long, he had always allowed Jack to ask questions if he was ever in the dark. That was what had made Jack fall for him so.

Ardbert spoke of the people and their spirit, their will to fight, how they had not lost it. He spoke of blame and responsibility. Jack spoke of secrecy and how he wished such a thing did not exist. Ardbert countered by speaking of keeping their secrets and thus keeping the people safe. Jack did not speak in light of this, he turned his head away, back to the too-bright sky. The past spoke of corners and ways out; of hopelessness and loss, how the future had not been defeated yet. He spoke of looking up at a sky as bright as what lay before them now, and being caught up in the winds of a strange kind of calm. Jack only wished he could be caught in the same storm, instead of the swirling abyss that engulfed him now.

‘Always,’ the spirit mused, ‘ _ always, _ we took the burden of fighting upon ourselves. That’s what heroes do, isn’t it?’

Jack sighed. It was easier to do things alone. From the moment he had been cast out from his family home because of his personal beliefs and virtues, he had made up his mind that he was better off alone, he worked better without the pressures and orders of other people clogging up his thoughts. And it was easier to die alone to the hands of a benevolent god if he did not have the rest of the world whispering on his shoulders. It was better to keep his passions to himself, stored deep in his stomach, than to show them how much he cared, so that they wouldn’t return it. If anything, he cared simply too much.

The future could not help but feel bitter at the past’s words speaking of right decisions. But nevertheless, he painted a smile on his face as best as he could.

And then, when their fists touched, a blinding light burst from the point of their contact, as though the Light from inside Jack wished to burst forth. Their souls were entwined, threaded together like fine stitching, linked like the hands of lovers - a heavy feeling of solitude came to rest on Jack’s shoulders; lovers like he, Urianger and Cid; one was back on the Source and the other was upset with him, it made his heart ache. Ardbert knew they were joined together, of course he did, Jack was always the last one to know about things like this.

He wondered just how exactly Ardbert could call him “ _ hero _ ” with such care and compassion poured into his voice. But despite his doubts, he smiled broadly.

After all, a smile better suited a hero.

His musings were interrupted when a familiar accented voice hit his eardrums. Feo Ul was not an unwelcome sight. She cried that she had been worried he had been all alone, but instead he was smiling like a pollen-drunk pixie. She looked at his aether, saw what had happened to it, saw the cracks splitting his soul like the sun split the bone dry lands of the Serengheti. She pondered what to do with him.

And then her voice tilted and contorted. She offered him her throne, the knife with which to cut ties with the mortal world and hide away in the castle that stood upon the lake of Il Mheg. It wouldn’t fix the problem, the problem of the sin eater lying dormant in his belly, but if heroes came calling with steel and arcane, all of the land would rise up in his defense.

It was not the offer that took him by surprise, but the willingness with which he considered it. He was more than ready to hold out his hands, so that Feo Ul’s crown and scepter could be laid upon them. He did so love the land of Il Mheg, with its oil painting meadows and its fairytale cottages, the lake filled with water that looked more like glass, the reeds that blanketed the town below it like a layer of snow. And, of course, he had found Urianger there.

Urianger…

It was the elezen that meant he could not take the crown or scepter. For however much they had argued and spat poison at each other, their love must have been able to transcend all of that. Despite the death of Moenbryda still weighing heavy on his heart, even after almost two years, Urianger still loved Jack as though his heart was in pain.

And Cid, who was still trapped on the Source with no way to get to them. It would be unfair to make Urianger deliver the news of their beloved’s fate.

So he shook his head at Feo Ul, who was caught under the impression that Jack would have never heeded such a wicked suggestion. She told him to stand very, very still, to think not of where he needed to go, but where he was, at this time, in this place. She looked towards the crystal tower, home of their friend of crystal, who had watched Jack with red eyes aglow. She told him that the clearest clue would be to see himself as how G’raha Tia had done. 

Jack stood in the garden of the crystallised miqo’te. And to find his answer, he would have to ask the flowers what they knew.

The flower that gave him the most hope was Lyna, with a key to the Umbilicus in her hand.

Books piled in towers on the seats of chairs. Falling piles of them rested upon the floor. All the signs of haphazardous research and worried studies. And then his head split and his eyes stung, as he was thrown back through time.

His heart ached as he was met with the sight of Urianger, looking so open and vulnerable in nothing but a robe much too long for his slight frame. He was lost and frightened, the world simply too much for him in that moment, that much was certain from just the look in his eyes. He asked for a moment to collect his thoughts, his need to go back over what he had been told still prevalent even in his fear.

He confirmed G’raha’s true name, his hailing from the Source, in an age beyond theirs, when the Eighth Umbral Calamity had destroyed their star, and that he had reached across the boundaries of time and space to stop the catastrophe from gripping the arms of Jack and dragging him down into an early grave. The words pained him to say, the hrothgar could see from his tense mouth and wet eyes. The talk of yet more death affecting those he loved was not something that Urianger wanted to contend with again, the knife that it would bring down on his heart would be something that he simply could not bear.

G’raha nodded.

They spoke of doubt and acceptance. And then G’raha spoke of the unfolding of chapters, upon Urianger’s request.

The elezen’s eyes clouded in confusion as Cid’s name was mentioned. How he had helped to propose a method of world leaping. His Cid? His joking and oil-splattered Cid? How could that be? His confusion soon turned into alarm when G’raha told him that his work consumed his lifetime, and that he died before it had been completed. So there he sat, faced with the prospect of the deaths of both of his loved ones. Despite this, he still listened and learned and, just like Jack knew he would, understood.

There was more talk of time and travel, where Urianger praised G’raha on his plan and his peace with the consequences. And then-

‘The Warrior of Light has been our unbroken thread.’

And how Urianger’s heart was destroyed. He looked up, eyes glimmering with pain and grief.

‘Where others would stumble and fall, he would rise above. Where others would break and run, he would carry on,’ the Exarch said, a smile on his face. ‘The Warrior of Light’s tale is one of unyielding bravery. To tell it was feel courage; to hear it was to feel hope. It was a breath of inspiration in an age of suffocating shadow.’

The elezen smiled and nodded. ‘Yes… Jack does have quite an effect on people.’

Jack listened incredulously to how tales of his journey had been told to children and adults alike. That he had instilled this sort of community within them. That his deeds had gone on through generations and generations to warm them on the coldest of nights.

‘He was the lodestar that brought them all together to send their final message back through time and space,’ G’raha said, warmly. ‘To  _ him _ .’

Jack’s heart ached as he saw his love raise his hands to his face and, with a quivering voice, murmur, ‘Wherefore sharest thou this burden with me and no other? What wouldst thou have me say?’

G’raha spoke of prices and their weight, and Urianger swallowed thickly. ‘What… price?’ His words were firm, every syllable tangible in the air. Perhaps he was thinking of Jack, perhaps Cid, perhaps he thought that the price to pay would be that he would lose one, or even both of them.

But instead, it was G’raha Tia that would be lost.

And then he was back in the Umbilicus. His hands shook and his heart beat. Urianger had put so much faith in G’raha. And G’raha had put so much faith in both the elezen and Jack. And they had failed. His shame and pain grew and swelled, causing the dormant eater inside him to stir with anticipation splitting its jaw.

‘Careful, now.’ It was enough to pull Jack back from the edge that he was slowly heading towards. ‘What do you mean to do?’

‘I mean to rescue the Exarch.’

Ardbert grinned. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ he said, pride gathering around his words like a warm scarf. ‘Let’s get to the amaro launch.’

Jack nodded. As they jogged out of the Umbilicus, Ardbert turned to the hrothgar. ‘And, uh… it’ll get better. You know, with Urianger. Things have a habit of working themselves out.’

‘Thanks, Ardbert,’ he replied. ‘I only hope it’s true.’

At the amaro launch, as Jack explained his predicament to the Amal’ja that stood behind the desk, his head felt like it was about to split open. Sparks flew across his vision as bright snow light blinded him. He clutched at his head and swallowed the rising blood in his throat. His breath shook like a timid antelope and his heart beat like the jaguar that faced it, tense and angry. And then-

‘Ah, we have found thee.’

The familiar voice with its gravelly tone that had drifted into his ears on so many dark nights pulled him from his pain and focused his mind once more. ‘Uri…’ he whispered, turning to the scholar with a wide eye.

‘I thought it best to gather the rest of our companions upon your recovery,’ Urianger said, his voice hesitant, a sheep lost in the pouring rain. ‘When I returned to your room to find it vacated, I admit I grew rather worried for thy safety.’

Jack looked away, his mind occupied with the thought of how fragile and vulnerable the elezen had looked in the room of the Umbilicus.

‘Ah. By thy looks, I gather thou hast gleaned that which I came to tell thee.’

The hrothgar nodded. ‘It was all… a fabrication.’

Urianger sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘Urianger has shared everything with us - the Exarch’s true identity and purpose,’ Alphinaud said, his mouth set in a grim line.

The elezen stepped forward, his posture tall and his movements careful and filled with grace. Just like he always was. It was something that Jack admired about him. But then, his knee bent and he knelt before his boyfriend, head bowed, eyes shut. The hrothgar’s lips parted in his surprise. ‘Uri…?’ he whispered, yet again.

There, before him, as vulnerable as a newborn calf, Urianger took a deep breath. ‘I offer no excuses,’ he declared, his voice heavy and strained with the weight of his shame and regret. ‘When I agreed to aid the Exarch with his plans, ‘twas in full acceptance of the condemnation I would face when my duplicity was laid bare.’ 

Jack shifted as he felt the eyes of all those around him disappear, leaving no one but himself and his beloved in the room on their own. This time, he kept the impatient antler at bay and let the elezen speak.

‘Yet it is not rancor but resolve that I sense in thee. Thou art fully intent upon walking thy path to its end, art thou not?’ Urianger replied, his voice hushed in its disbelief.

‘I am,’ Jack replied, ‘the Exarch has to be saved. And we are the only ones that can do that.’

‘Ever thinking of all but thyself. ‘Tis one of the many things that I admire of thee. I… I am truly, truly sorry, my love, that I kept such secrets from thou. Hurting thou was the very last thing that I desired to do,’ the elezen said, looking up at his boyfriend with eyes alight with adoration. ‘And… if thou canst forgive my deception - or… or failing that, set aside thy displeasure for a time - I do beg leave to follow thee. What strength and wisdom I possess are thine to command.’

Jack knelt down in front of the elezen, whose eyes were filled with silver tears of sadness and red-rimmed with confusion. He raised a hand to rest on Urianger’s jaw. ‘Oh, love… of course… of  _ course _ I forgive you. I’m so sorry for everything I said before,’ he whispered, his voice carrying on winds made of stardust and trust.

Urianger’s breath hitched, as his silver tears bled and their sadness morphed into delight. ‘I… I thank thee. I… doubt not that I will do all in my power to repay thy kindness, and fulfill the Exarch’s wishes,’ he murmured.

Jack leaned forward and brought Urianger’s face closer to his. ‘Shut up and c’mere,’ he said, forest streams flooding on muddy banks as the antelope escaped from the jaguar. He pulled his boyfriend into his chest, kissing his cheek and wrapping his arms around his shoulders.

Urianger gasped and leaned into Jack’s hold, burying his face into his boyfriend’s warm neck. His shoulders shook with the weight of forcing his tears back down, but the pressure was simply too much. With a wet intake of breath, the elezen’s dam broke, as tears made of starlight and asteroids dripped from golden moons. 

Jack nuzzled his face into the top of Urianger’s head, a chuffing noise coming from his throat. ‘Shh, shh,’ he hushed, fingers threading through cotton-soft hair, ‘it’s okay,  _ we’re _ okay.’

And as he started to rock side to side, Urianger could not help but smile through his aching heart. Yes, this was exactly where he was meant to be. He was  _ home _ . Everything was going to be okay.


End file.
